Note 3 — Chapter VIII

“Nor pity.” Upton, in a note on Diss. i. 18. 3. (Schw.), refers to various passages in Epictetus where pity and envy are mentioned together as though they were related emotions, and aptly quotes Virgil (Georg. ii. 499):—

It will be clear to any careful reader that when Epictetus asserts that certain emotions or acts are unworthy of a man, he constantly means the “man” to be understood as his highest spiritual faculty, his deepest sense of reason, his soul. That we are not to pity or grieve means that that side of us which is related to the divine and eternal is not to be affected by emotions produced by calamities in mere outward and material things. St. Augustine corroborates this view in an interesting passage bearing on the Stoic doctrine of pity (De Civ. Dei. ix. 5; Schw. iv. 132):—

“Misericordiam Cicero non dubitavit appellare virtutem, quam Stoicos inter vitia numerare non pudet, qui tamen, ut docuit liber Epicteti nobilissimi Stoici ex decretis Zenonis et Chrysippi, qui hujus sectæ primas partes habuerunt, hujuscemodi passiones in animum Sapientis admittunt, quem vitiis omnibus liberam esse volunt. Unde fit consequens, ut hæc ipsa non putent vitia, quando Sapienti sic accidunt, ut contra virtutem mentis rationemque nihil possunt.”

The particular utterances of Epictetus here alluded to by St. Augustine must have been contained in some of the lost books of the Dissertations, as nothing like them is to be found explicitly in those which survive, although the latter afford us abundant means for deducing the conclusion which St. Augustine confirms.